I have an innate unshakeable awareness of my own mortality. It’s interesting how few people acknowledge our mortality. I guess it’s how most of us are able to live our lives free from extreme worry. If we focused on the fact that we are all going to die, how could we focus on living?
Death is very narcissistic. Once the thought of it enters into your mind, it doesn’t want any other lesser thoughts to overshadow it. It wants to make itself comfortable there and stay for as long as possible. It needs plenty of attention before it can be temporarily satisfied and leave. Even then, it always comes back and expects to be indulged.
That’s probably why most of us don’t let it get into our heads. Ignoring it, however, doesn’t make it any less real. We think we grasp the fact that everyone is mortal, but at the same time, almost all of us think we’re the one exception; "death doesn’t apply to me." I don’t feel that way. I know death won’t pass me by; I am going to die. When faced with this widespread denial of mortality, my acknowledgement of death makes me feel lonely and painfully human.
The odd thing is, I would not give up the awareness of my mortality for anything. I think the fact that I constantly feel (at least vaguely) isolated and inadequate makes me care more when others experience the same feelings. We all come equipped with weak spots perfectly suited to trigger these feelings. Some of us have many spots, and some of our spots are very weak. (Mine are broken.) I want to reinforce the spots. Especially for those of us who have a lot of them or really weak ones or both. I am pretty good at guessing where someone’s spots are and how weak they are. I also have gotten pretty good at noticing when they get hit. I try to fix the spots when I find them and repair any possible damage after a I detect blow. It can be tricky, though, because none of us want to look weak so we all try to cover up our spots. Unfortunately, covering them up doesn’t make them go away. Sometimes, it even makes them worse. You have to work to make them stronger.
Although at the same time, everyone definitely needs to hang on to a few reasonably weak spots. If we didn’t have any, we wouldn’t be able to understand how others feel when their spots get hit.